


We always find our way back to each other

by brightasstars



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Committed Relationship, Human, Hurt Alec Lightwood, M/M, Marriage Proposal, Memory Loss, Plans For The Future, Suicidal Thoughts, Valentine's Day, fiding each other, getting together again, recovery from pain, supposed major character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-16
Updated: 2020-02-16
Packaged: 2021-02-28 00:15:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,033
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22754599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightasstars/pseuds/brightasstars
Summary: It will be a Valentine's day Alec will never forget....
Relationships: Magnus Bane/Alec Lightwood
Comments: 12
Kudos: 104
Collections: Favorite Malec Stories, Valentine's Day 2020





	We always find our way back to each other

**Author's Note:**

> Human AU
> 
> Warnings: slight mention of suicidal thoughts
> 
> The music in the story is HALO - the Cure

Alec was sitting meaninglessly on the subway platform.

He felt so empty and lost.

How many times in these last two months had he thought about just throwing himself under that train?

He couldn’t tell… at least twice a day, getting to work and coming home.

His home didn’t feel home anymore… because his home had been Magnus’ heart.

And on this particular day hearts were hanging from every ceiling… in restaurants, shops, even the streets were enlighted with heart shaped lights.

Florists were selling red roses’ bouquets at every street angle and loving messages were projected on every damn screen around town.

Alec had never cared that much of S. Valentine’s day… not before Magnus anyway.

And now…

_I’m not gonna survive to this damn day. I want to die. I want to end this heart shattering pain. I want to let myself slowly slip away…._

_No…no...Think of him… He wouldn’t have wanted that…He…he’s…_

Alec kept rehearsing this memento in his mind almost a hundred times a day, since the day Magnus had disappeared.

Like a shadow being enveloped by a bigger darkness.

Alec’s clock and timetable had abruptly been stopped on the 14th of December.

He kept on waking up, washing himself, going to work, coming home, sometimes seeing his siblings… like a robot…he wasn’t alive anymore.

Sometimes he swore he couldn’t feel his own heartbeat anymore.

Magnus had disappeared the day after Alec had proposed to him.

_Fucking life._

They were so happy, so in love.

The nights were the worst.

Magnus’ voice and laughter haunting him in his nightmares.

He couldn’t sleep.

As soon as his eyes closed for tiredness…. He could hear Magnus calling, singing, he could see him dancing, smiling to him, making love to him… and he started crying in his sleep… every damn night.

Then the sobs would wake him and he usually made his way toward the toilet, threw up and just stayed there, one arm on the loo, the forehead buried in his arm, shaking and sobbing until he felt numb.

_Why him? Why me? Why us? Why…why…why…_

That terrible day… Magnus had left for work, like every morning, kissing him goodbye.

Magnus was a Philosophy’s Professor at the SUNY, he loved his job…he loved teaching.

_\----------x--------_

_Magus had met Alec a year before their final dissertation._

_There had been a conference about the connections between philosophy and Bohm’s pilot wave theory, basically Bohn’s interpretation of quantum mechanics._

_Alec was there, as the brightest and youngest physicist the SUNY had had in years._

_His professor had introduced him to Magnus and… something just clicked, they had never left each other from that day on._

_Alec had always been a shy and introverted guy, but Magnus had made him light up._

_He had never had a boyfriend before, he had always been interested only in theories, numbers and equations._

_Magnus had introduced him to the inexplicable and unpredictable equations of the heart._

_After that conference, they had three dates in a row._

_And after one week Magnus had given him his first kiss ever._

_Then his first time._

_His first dance._

_His first flight._

_So many firsts with him._

_They had graduated and started their own professional careers._

_Magnus as an associate professor, Alec as a researcher._

_Within a year they had moved together in Magnus’ house._

_They had arrived at their fourth year of living together._

_In the meantime Magnus had become a full professor and Alec the Chief Scientist of the Theoretical Quantum Physics Laboratory._

_They were happy and in love._

_On the 13 th of the last December, they were coming back from work together._

_There was ice on the sidewalk and Magnus had slipped._

_But Alec was there._

_Magnus had landed in Alec’s arms, like a tango dancer falling from a pirouette._

_When his strong arms had surrounded him and prevented him from falling, there had been a moment in which Alec had looked at him intensely._

_Then in a whisper accompanied by a puff of “cloud smoke” he had told him out of the blue “Will you marry me?”_

\----------x---------

The day after the proposal, Magnus had never made his way to the University.

By noon Alec hadn’t received any call from him and he had started worrying.

His phone wasn’t ringing.

At the SUNY they had told him Magnus hadn’t showed up for his classes that morning.

By 2 p.m. Alec was going mad.

He started calling all the ERs.

When no one with that name had been found, Alec had been crawling from morgue to morgue….to identify all the bodies of unknown persons that had died on that day.

Izzy and Jace, his siblings, went with him in this trip inside the _Death Valley_.

Alec could still feel inside of him, all the emotions he went through on that damn day.

He could perfectly recall that terrible sting inside himself every time the doctor had uplifted the white sheet above the dead one’s face.

Alec had shut his eyes at every single gesture, opening them hopingly and in slow-motion every time.

He had felt relived each time he hadn’t find Magnus’ face under those sheets.

But at the same time anguish kept building inside of him….

_Where was he? What had happened to him?_

In the days to follow he had gone from astonishment, to anguish, then despair, than… nothingness.

By the end of the week he was entranced.

Magnus had been declared a _missing person_.

After another week of wondering between hospitals, he started to search in all the recovery places for homeless people.

Magnus was nowhere to be found.

Alec instead felt dead.

He had no tears left to cry.

He had no voice left to scream.

He was the incarnation of pain, pain, pain, pain everywhere.

Inside and outside.

He had always believed that emotional pain was something you felt inside your heart, inside your mind.

He sadly discovered that he was feeling pain everywhere, in each single part of his physical body.

_Alec couldn’t believe Magnus was dead._

_Neither he could believe that he had ran away._

_Where was he then?_

In the first two weeks, his siblings and Magnus’ friends had been taking turns to stay with him.

But then Alec made clear he wanted to stay alone.

Ragnor had temporarily taken Magnus place in teaching.

After Alec pleading him, the University’s Chancellor had agreed to wait until the end of the academic year to definitely replace him.

To cope with the pain, he had buried himself in his Lab.

He had spent there the majority of his days, he went there even on the weekends.

He had stopped talking to anyone.

He had almost stopped feeding himself.

He had stopped living.

The morning subway was arriving.

Even in his _all-science_ lab, boys and girls were exchanging Valentine’s gifts and cards.

_He remembered the first_ _Valentine’s card Magnus had given him. Magnus had cooked dinner for them._

_He was a wonderful cook._

_They had been together for a month, but sex was still an uncovered territory for Alec._

_He wanted to try so many things with Magnus, but he didn’t know how to ask._

_So Magnus had found a way to break through him._

_He remembered how hard it had him blushing, when he had read it._

.

He smiled downhearted. A single tear finding its way out.

He entered in the Lab staring to the floor, he didn’t want anyone to feel uncomfortable in his presence.

Because he knew…he knew… that he was the living reminder that sometimes nightmares come knocking at your real door.

\---------------------x----------------------------

Magnus had awoke two months ago while he was lying in an abandoned street near the SUNY.

He had no wallet.

No bags.

When he had opened his eyes… he just looked around and couldn’t figure out where he was.

He stood up.

His legs were aching, he had some bruises on his arms.

_Why am I here?_

_Oh…_

_Who am I?_

He tried to remember…he must have had a name… but… his mind was like an empty vase.

He had no money. No one to call. He didn’t even know if this was his own town.

After wondering around all the day trying to figure out something, he finally had ended in a recovery for homeless people.

At dinner time he started to talk with the man who came cooking for them.

He was Indonesian and, Magnus couldn’t tell why, but he could understand him.

The cook, who came there as a volunteer, owned an Indonesian restaurant and had asked Magnus to go with him and work there. He had a small room in the back.

He told Magnus he could stay there, work for him as a dishwasher, until he had figured out who he was and where he belonged.

Then the days had passed.

No matter how hard he tried to remember, he always ended up with a throbbing headache.

After two weeks working at the restaurant, the chef realized that he was really good at cooking and that, as it had been for the language, the guy knew how to prepare the most stunning Indonesian dishes.

So he had been upgraded.

The chef Hasan had found him a name.

Since he had some Asians physical traits he had become Daniel Lee.

He was thinking about finding himself a home, but he needed to save some money before doing it.

So he kept working harder and harder.

Chef Hasan kept asking him every day if his memories were returning.

But there was only a black hole.

No clues, no ideas, nothing at all.

It was like he had born adult.

He had the body of a man, but the memories of a newborn baby.

That morning he had arrived really early at the restaurant.

It was Valentine’s Day, they were all booked out for dinner.

They had to get all things prepared for 6 p.m.

The restaurant was decorated with red hearts hanging from the ceiling.

Magnus had planned to decorate the tables with red roses’ petals scattered around and candles.

.

Chef Hasan thought he had a stunning esthetic taste.

So he had been free to chose colors and accessories.

The day had ran quickly, cutting, slicing, melting.

It was time to decorate the desserts.

The radio was playing.

Music filling the kitchen

\------------ x ----------------

Alec’s day was about to end.

He kept staring at the letter he had received from the MIT.

_Right now._

_When I’m a complete mess._

_Why?_

He had even forgot he had made an application for the MIT Department of Physics.

Magnus had insisted for him to do that.

And it had been accepted.

He had to accept the position within a month.

_Shit._

He should be happy.

But all he could feel was… nothing.

Maybe it would have been good for him.

To change.

Change town. Change home. Change life.

But right now… he couldn’t feel like he wanted to.

_I will think about it later._

He unbuttoned his white lab coat.

_How many times had Magnus done that?_

_When they had closed each other in the lab’s toilet?_

_When the rush and the need to stay together in each other’s arms couldn’t be delayed?_

Every single gesture was a stab in his already aching heart.

He closed the glass door of the lab with his keys.

His phone rang.

“Jace?”

“Going home?”

“Yeah”

“I was thinking about…”

“Jace… thanks. I appreciate the thought. I really do. But I’m really tired. I just want to go to sleep.”

He closed the call.

The way to the subway seemed so long.

\------------------- x --------------------

Magnus was cutting cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves for the traditional Indonesian Spice Cake.

When the music captured his attention.

_I never felt like this with anyone before  
You only have to smile and I'm dizzy  
You make the world go round  
A thousand times an hour  
Just touch my head  
And send me spinning_

_I never felt like this with anyone before  
You show me colors and I'm crying  
You hold my eyes in yours  
And open up the world  
I can't believe all this_

_I want to keep this feeling  
Deep inside of me  
I want you always in my heart  
You are everything_

_I never felt like this with anyone before  
You fill my head all full of rainbows  
And all the rainbows end  
Is every step you take  
Just to be with you forever_

_I want to keep this feeling  
Deep inside of me  
I want you always in my heart  
You are everything_

He started sweating, he was perspiring, his heart beating fast, his head starting to spin a bit.

_Who is he?_

Chef Hasan immediately understood that something was happening inside his mind.

His eyes were frozen, staring an invisible point in the kitchen.

_Who is he? Why is he singing to me? Why all that people?_

Magnus felt like he had been suddenly thrown into a cinema’s seat.

A weird movie playing just before his very eyes.

 _Weird_ was an understatement.

Because he was _in the movie_.

And he wasn’t alone, he was with someone.

And _that_ someone was singing to him.

No… he was mouthing the lyrics.

And there was so so so much love in those eyes.

And the people around…so many…they were all singing…

…A concert… that concert….

“A………Alec!” Magnus found himself shouting out that name.

His head was pounding.

Now he remembered.

It had been what? Two months?

He could bet two agonizing months for the man inside his visions.

All his memories were flooding into him, like a river escaping a dam.

He felt sick, but that wasn’t important right now….

“Daniel Lee…?”

“I’m…I’m…My name is Magnus…. I….I…Know who I am…..” he was crying.

“Alec…. Oh my God Alec…..”

He was utterly assaulted by concerns about Alec… he must have died of pain…

“I…I…I…have to go….now…I’m…I’m sorry…. But Alec… he must have been in such a pain… all because of me….He needs me…He needs me to be there…”

“Don’t worry Dan…Magnus…. I’m glad you’ve found your way home…Go…. Go to him….”

“I…sorry”

He undressed himself and rushed out of the restaurant’s door.

_Oh please, please, please…._

_Be alive._

_Be safe._

_I’m coming back my love._

_Please, please, please._

The pain in his head was getting worse, but he kept running and running, he took the subway almost jumping.

His home….their home …..was waiting for him.

Inside the subway he was thinking about those two months…. How hard they must have been for Alec.

Alec was a man who kept everything inside.

Magnus had been the only one who could breach in.

The only one Alec could talk to.

_My, my Alec…._

\----------------------x ----------------------------

Alec was slowly approaching their home in the dark.

He was faltering, rambling.

Eyes not focused on anything.

It seemed like he was somnambulating.

Magnus’s heart skipped a bit when he saw him coming toward the four steps that granted the access to their home.

His eyes were filled with tears.

Alec was so thin.

He had deep black shadows under his eyes.

Magnus just wanted to jump at him, hug him.

But he didn’t want to scare him.

He seemed so lost.

Alec was searching for the keys in the pocket of his jacket.

Magnus was now in his line of sight.

He only had to lift his gaze.

Magnus was waiting for him, his back leaning on the railing.

His heart was stammering.

_Three, two, one…._

Alec raised his eyes.

He froze.

_Fuck! I’m hallucinating._

He was sweating. He blinked twice.

_Oh my…I’m not hallucinating. Is that? Is that really him?_

His eyes grew wide. Tears streaming down his face.

“M…M…M….Magnus? Is…Is…Are you…real?” he was stuttering.

“Alexander…” Magnus was crying too, his voice cracking.

Alec put his hand on his lips and slowly started to close the distance between them.

Magnus stood up properly, waiting for him.

_Magnus… Magnus… Magnus…_

As Alec halted in front of Magnus he reached out with his left hand, to stroke Magnus’ cheek.

His skin was silk under his finger tips.

Magnus turned his head to place a kiss in Alec’s palm.

A great tremor overtook Alec.

He felt a tightening in his throat and made a short intake of breath.

He felt he couldn’t hold his emotions any longer as he fell to the floor in a disheveled heap as his grief poured out in a flood of uncontrollable tears.

His body wrecked with an onslaught of sobs.

Magnus dropped on his knees too and embraced him, caressing his back, his head, his arms.

For a while Alec had his arms dropped beside his waist, then slowly raised them behind Magnus’ back and closed them in a tight embrace.

“Magnus… Where, where have you been? What happened to you? I… I… everyone thought you were… “ he was asking between his sobs.

“I’m so sorry Alec for all the pain you had to endure and go through. I’m sorry…. How…How…how did you manage to survive I don’t know…”

“Me neither…”

“I’m here now, and I won't go away.”

Alec strengthened his grip.

As his sobs were becoming more silent Magnus begun speaking.

“I …I had lost my memory Alexander. I just had it back.”

Alec disentangled from Magnus embrace.

“I knew it…. I knew you weren’t dead….But how…? And where have you been staying all this time? What have you been doing?”

Alec was slowly regaining his stance. He felt a deep calm joy building inside of him.

“I was assaulted that morning on my way to the University…When I woke up I didn’t remember who I was.”

Tears of sorrow were constantly running down his cheeks.

“I… I’ve been sleeping that first night in a recovery for homeless people then…. I found a job in an Indonesian restaurant and the chef allowed me to sleep there in a small room in the back. I started as a dishwasher. Then as a cook. Now I know, why I was so good at cooking those dishes….”

“Because they’re yours…” Alec now was caressing Magnus everywhere, shoulders, arms, chest. His eyes scanning him, his hands touching every inch of skin he could reach.

“How… how did you remember?”

Magnus started singing…. Alec’s eyes were filled with tears again.

“It had been you Alec…You brought me back… It was the memory of you singing to me at that concert….As I heard that song while I was cooking this afternoon, everything came back, every memory hitting me like a punch. I dropped my tools and ran to you. I had to tell you. To prove you. That I wasn’t dead. That you weren’t alone anymore.”

Alec leaned into him and gently brushed his lips on Magnus’.

Then he pressed a little bit harder.

Magnus' mouth opened.

Alec was home again.

He could feel his heartbeat again.

His blood was singing.

They kissed for a long, long time.

“How are you feeling? This whole… recalling thing… is… is it hurting you?”

“My head his aching since this afternoon…but it’s gradually lessening. And you? What about you? You’re so thin… and you look like you hadn’t been sleeping at all. I… I…can only figure out how much pain you had been into.”

Alec sighed.

He looked Magnus deeply inside his eyes.

“I’m gonna be ok Magnus. Now that you’re with me. I’m gonna be ok. You’re so beautiful Magnus. How much I missed the smell and the touch of your skin. My days and nights were filled with you. Always. I never believed or accepted the idea of you being gone. Forever. I just couldn’t. But… I was breaking. I had been sucked into a deep black hole. I don’t know how much longer I would have been able to cope with this. I felt lost. I… I thought so many times of giving up Magnus, so many times…. You just lived inside of me Magnus, I could feel you everywhere…This…this feeling kept me alive…Magnus….I…I love you.”

Those words had been buried deep inside of him for these two long, terrible months.

Alec had been sure he would have never uttered them to anyone anymore.

“I love you too Alexander.”

Minutes turned into hours.

They just stayed there sitting on the steps, hugging in the cold winter night.

Just being warmed by their presence.

Alec gave a quick look at his watch.

It was 9.

“Are you hungry?” Alec asked.

“Maybe… How are you feeling?”

“Mmmm….Like I’ve never felt before” and he smiled.

“So… how about… me inviting you to dinner? It’s S. valentine’s day…Are you… Would you mind to celebrate a bit?”

“My life has just begun again…. So yes…Let’s celebrate…”

“Come with me then”

They walked to the subway hand in hand.

Alec had forgotten the bright sensation of having Magnus with him, on his side.

He felt like floating.

And suddenly all those hanging hearts from everywhere seemed like beating… beating in rhythm with his own heart.

The Indonesian restaurant was full.

Magnus opened the door slowly. He Knew there weren’t any tables left.

Couples were chatting.

“So you’ve been working here?”

“Mmm…Do you like the decorations?”

“They are just so… _YOU_ … I love them…”

Magnus headed straight to the kitchen door.

“Do you need any help?”

The chef turned at the voice he’d just heard.

“Da…Oh sorry…Magnus? Is he… is he?”

“Yes, chef this is Alexander, my fiancé, Alexander this is chef Hasan”

Alec’s heart gasped at hearing the word fiancé.

He had forgotten… the proposal…

Alec extended his hand but the chef offered him his elbow instead.

“I have to keep my hands clean darling. And I need to go back to work.”

“Actually, we’re here to help.” Magnus affirmed.

“Ma…”

“You helped me giving me this job, when you didn’t know me at all. You’d let me run away from here this afternoon even if this was one of your busiest nights. The least I can do is finish what I had started. Alexander is here with me so… I don’t need anything else.”

“All right. I will accept your help. Under one condition. When the last of my guests exits from that room, you two are going to have a seat in that table and celebrate.”

They both nodded.

Alec and Magnus washed their hands, they wore aprons and caps.

Magnus guided Alec to the sink.

“You wash, I cut.”

How many times had they done this at home?

Cooking together?

In that foreign kitchen, they were home again.

They had entered in their usual rhythm as if time had never passed.

As if that pain had never touched them.

Alec washing, Magnus cutting, Alec teasing and kissing, Magnus mixing, checking and tasting.

Alec was smiling, sometimes actually laughing.

The sound of his laughter seemed stranger to his ears. He hadn’t been doing that since that day.

Life had surprised him. Again. When he thought there was nothing left to live for.

Magnus was finishing cutting all the fruits needed to prepare the Rujak, while Alec was putting all the plates in the dishwasher.

“Have you finished?”

“Yes, Alexander. I have.”

He spun to face Alec, holding a green big heart made out of a papaya.

Alec’s smile was broad, his eyes glistening.

_I want to keep this feeling  
Deep inside of me  
I want you always in my heart  
You are everything_

“Magnus, do you remember….” He chuckled.

“I think I do remember quite everything now Alexander”

“…Ehm… that position you made me apply for at MIT?”

“Of course”

“They accepted me… I… I have to answer within one month…If I still… If we still…”, so many things in one day.

Magnus took his face in his hands and smiled.

_How much I missed this smile._

“Then we have no choice…”

“Which means?”

“Getting married before the end of this month, so we can move”


End file.
